Disturbing the Placid Waters of Normativity

Character Sketches

We come now to Eulicia, one of the most enigmatic of my viewpoint characters, even to me. I’m still exploring her character quirks, her desires and motivations, but here’s what I’ve discovered so far.

Born into the powerful and influential House Khamytzes, she has known from an early age that she was fated for great things. While her elder brothers pursued the cursus honorum that would lead to their political futures, she decided that she would pursue her power through the auspices of the Church. It had been several generations since a member of her family had done so and thus, in consultation with her father and mother and the other leading magnates of her House, she saw the Church as a viable pathway to power.

Unlike some of her fellow Prefects and others in the Church, she is not primarily interested in the intricacies of theology or language, philosophy or the sciences. Instead, she is interested in politics and, above all, ensuring that the Imperium and the Church remain wedded in their mutual partnership. Naturally, this has also meant ensuring that heretics are expunged, but she does this not out of any doctrinal loyalty, but out of a desire to ensure that the world that she cherishes remains stable. For her, the costs incurred in this mission are never too large, for stability means that everyone, of high or low estate, is able to rest at night knowing that their lives are secure. (Of course, being born to wealth, she really has no idea that this doesn’t always work out so well in practice).

Given her upbringing and her birth, she moved quickly through the ranks of the Academy, and while she did not attain the highest marks, she was a competent student and teacher, able to impress those who encountered her with her erudition and the precision of her thought.

When one of the key places on the Council of Prefects fell vacant as the result of the death of Prefect Plakidia, Eulicia was in the perfect position to fill it. Her noble birth and her rank within the Church ensured that her election would not be too acrimonious, though there were a few ruffled feathers among the other noble families who also had their own members primed for the accession. The Duke Childerick, for one, had hoped that his own daughter would assume that position, and his resentment, and that of his son, will come to have significant consequences for the present actions unspooling.

Eulicia, like most of her fellow Prefects, has actively sought out a political role for herself. Unlike most of them, however, she has fostered particularly strong and close ties with the current Imperator Talinissia, with whom she has been close friends since they were both students at the Academy. Indeed, she has been by her side since it first became clear that her father, despite the wishes of many in his innermost counsels, was going to make sure that she acceded to the throne. Thus, it was Eulicia who was given the sacred task of investing Talinissia with the regalia upon her accession.

From the beginning of the reign of the Imperator Talinissia, she has thrown in her lot with the unlikely heir and done everything in her power to make sure that she has the support she needs from within the Church. This, despite the fact that a significant number of the Great Houses–and a large number of the Lesser ones as well–conspired and sided with Talinissia’s brother in his ill-considered bid for the throne. Though it would have been easier for Eulicia to abandon her friend, she did not and has not done so, strong-arming the more ambitious and rebellious members of her own family into supporting this particular member of the imperial family.

It should be clear, then, that Eulicia is more than a little ruthless. She does not necessarily see herself that way, however. Instead, she firmly believe that what she is doing is for the best of the Imperium, the Church, and the fundamental order that they represent on the temporal plane. She has made many enemies, but there are also many that respect her as a woman of integrity, ironclad as it may seem.

All of this probably makes her sound like someone who is merely hungry for power and is jealous of her class status. I suppose to some extent that’s true, but there is something else going on with her, as well. Eulicia is a woman who is utterly convinced that she is in the right, and it takes a great deal to convince her to change her mind. As the events of the novel unfold, however, it remains to be seen whether she will be able to weather the storm that is about to overcome her world and all that she knows.

Theadra is, in many ways, the centerpiece of the story I’m telling. Or, at any rate, she is a centerpiece, since I see this project as more of an ensemble than a solo. It will be her actions that will transform the world that she lives in, her discovery that sets off a chain of events that will radically reconfigure everything around her.

First, though, a few words about her upbringing.

Like her mentor Antonius, she grew up as a member of the lower-class. Her father was a butcher in the capital, while her mother was a seamstress and maid for a wealthy merchant. Indeed, it was this merchant (one Justin by name) who first saw in her the spark of true academic brilliance and brought her to the attention of Antonius.

Theadra was plucked out of her life of obscurity and enrolled in the Academy with all of her expenses paid. Like her nameless benefactor–it would be some time before she learned that it was Antonius–she leaned toward the human sciences and philosophy. And, like him, she was also the subject of torment by those who saw her as an interloper in the rightful terrain of the nobility. However, she persevered, determined to prove herself worthy and to make sure that she made her benefactor’s investment in her worth the expense.

Theadra possesses a truly remarkable adeptness with languages, and she has mastered at least 5 at the time the story begins, including several of the archaic languages that have already fallen out of the knowledge of the average citizen of the Imperium. From the beginning of her time in the Academy, and later when she took up the positions of the ascending Church hierarchy, she has been tasked with translating the numerous old scripts that can be found in the archives. Though the Church has remained remarkably consistent in its teachings since its origins, it has also managed to lose track of many of its foundational texts as well. Translators and commentators are thus much in demand, and so Theadra has found herself similarly called upon to serve the Church.

At the time of the novel, she has already risen to the rank of Deacon, a middling position within the Church but understood to be one of the key planks in the cursus sanctorum, the ladder that ascends to the ultimate position of Prefect. As such, she has a not inconsiderable amount of power within the Church, though because of her introverted nature she has yet to accrue the sort of clientele that she will need if she wishes to ascend into the higher ranks of the clergy. This has frequently been a bone of contention between her and her mentor Antonius, for he has learned (often the hard way) that it is necessary to have allies of particular power and influence if one is to make advancements.

While she is steadfast in her adherence to the Church, Theadra has begun to feel the pinch of doubt. She desperately wants to believe with all of her heart, but there have been many things that she has read that have challenged her belief in the unassailability of the Church. What’s more, she has begun to take to hear the dissatisfaction of the common people, who see in the Church the worst sort of hypocrisy. While the commoners have begun a downward spiral into financial penury, facing all manner of tribulations throughout the Imperium, those in the upper echelons of power continue to thrive. Despite their claims to the denial of the material world, they still cling to the very things that they deny. To Theadra’s eyes, used as they are to the privations that most people face, this is very troubling. Indeed, it will come to shape much of what happens to her, and much of what actions she takes, as the novel progresses.

At the time of the novel, she is around 25 years of age. She entered the Academy when she was 15, and so she has had 10 years to learn what she has and to gain some allies. Her closest friend is, without a doubt, Antonius, though there is always the tension that exists between a superior and a subordinate (or a teacher and a disciple). Despite this, there is a genuine warmth there, though as the events of the novel will show, there is a limit even to such things. And as events will likewise show, Theadra is, despite her own wishes or knowledge, caught up in forces that she can neither name nor control.

I’m really looking forward to fully developing this character. To my mind, it’s high time that we have a female epic hero who fits into the mold of the likes of Rand al’Thor, the Ohmsford family, and the like. Hopefully, Theadra will serve as that character.

Born into a yeoman family in the western duchy of Aspaña, Antonius was not, at first blush, fated for any sort of prominent position. However, he was from his youth a tremendously ambitious young man, and through sheer ruthlessness and determination he was able to secure himself a position in the local monastery, where he could at last indulge his love of books, knowledge, and the wisdom of the ancients.

It was not long before the abbot recognized his innate potential and began grooming him for a potential career in the highest echelons of the Church. He was sent to the Academy in Aïonis, recognized by everyone as the only sure way for those born into the lower classes to make their way up the ranks. He impressed his teachers, who recognized his intellectual and spiritual gifts and did all that they could to continue cultivating them.

He soon made a name for himself as one of those insufferable types of students who insists on following the rules, despite the fact that this made him tremendously unpopular among his fellow students. He was tormented by those who saw him as doubly a threat, both because of his accomplishments and because of the fact that he was a lower-class person who had risen to a position that they deemed the exclusive purview of the wealthy and the elite.

Though there was much he hated about his time at the Academy, he met the man who would come to be the love of his life, the nobleman Trystane. This youth, who came from the Peninsula, was one of those rare people who, despite their innate privilege, makes a point of befriending those in the lower classes. He was a few years younger than Antonius, but he was also brilliant, though in a different way. Whereas Antonius leans toward philosophy and theology, Trystane is more attuned to science and to the workings of things, including the affairs of nations.

The two began their relationship during their time at the Academy, and they have remained with one another ever since. Given that the Church officially condones same-sex relationships–both among the clergy and the laity–they have been allowed to be joined officially in the sacrament of marriage. This caused no small amount of friction with Trystane’s family in particular, since doing so not only abrogated any of his political ambitions but also sullied the vaunted name. Still, the relationship has persevered through all of that.

Indeed, it has been Trystane’s political acumen that has allowed Antonius to quickly ascend the ranks of the Church. There were, of course, many who opposed him, but Trystane was quite willing to do away with those who stood in the way of his beloved’s interests. Though he may have abandoned his traditional family loyalties, he was still able to use the skills that had been cultivated in him from an early age.

As Prefect, Antonius made it his duty to ensure that the purity of the Church is maintained. He views the stability of the Church as key to the stability of the cosmos, and he is also determined to ensure that the Imperators do not interlope too thoroughly on the interests and prerogatives of the Church. As a result, he has had several tense run-ins with the previous Imperator, and he has also been known to have heated arguments with the current Imperator Talinissia.

At the time of the novel, he has already been serving as a Prefect of the Church for the last twenty years, and in that time he has become one of the most ruthless and relentless persecutors of those who have been found. Unfortunately, he does not enjoy a great deal of support among the population of the Imperium, though the rank and file of the Church find him to be generous. He has made it a particular point to cultivate the talents of those who come from similar backgrounds as himself, including and especially the young Theadra. This girl, the daughter of a butcher, has a bright future ahead of her, though the events of the novel will test her in ways that she would never have imagined.

Further, Antonius has also earned the enmity of several of his fellow Prefects, almost all of whom hail from the nobility and thus view him with no small amount of skepticism and outright hostility. Of particular note in this regard is the Prefect Eulicia, who sees in him a threat to all that she has come to hold dear, particularly the order imposed by the aristocracy and the nobility. The two have spent many years sparring with one another, neither able to gain a definitive advantage over the other. How long that stalemate lasts, and who will emerge the victory in their strife, is one of the major plots of the novel.

Stay tuned for more characters sketches as I learn more about my characters and share that knowledge with you.

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